


And Out Of Sight (You Know I’m Leaving You Between The Lines)

by geckoholic



Category: Captain America (Movies), Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Genre: Awkward Boners, F/M, Hostage Situations, Restraints, Tied together, Unresolved Sexual Tension
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-04-14
Updated: 2016-04-14
Packaged: 2018-06-02 06:49:57
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,425
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6555958
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/geckoholic/pseuds/geckoholic
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>
  <em>Maria comes to slowly and with a splitting headache. She's sitting up, the sting from rope burn on her arms and legs the first thing that registers. The second bit of information that makes it through the fog in her mind is the solid warmth of another body pressed up close to hers and that, finally, is what jump-starts her brain into full-on alert emergency mode. </em>
</p>
            </blockquote>





	And Out Of Sight (You Know I’m Leaving You Between The Lines)

**Author's Note:**

> For the prompt "handcuffed/tied together". I took that literally, for once. XD 
> 
> Beta-read by maybemalapert. Thank you!! ♥ All remaining mistakes are mine.
> 
> Title is from "Out Of Sight" by In-Flight Safety.

Maria comes to slowly and with a splitting headache. She's sitting up, the sting from rope burn on her arms and legs the first thing that registers. The second bit of information that makes it through the fog in her mind is the solid warmth of another body pressed up close to hers and that, finally, is what jump-starts her brain into full-on alert emergency mode. 

She doesn't startle or struggle to get free, however, doesn't even open her eyes; whoever has her left her alone while she was unconscious, and it might be beneficial to try and keep them convinced that's still the case. There are voices, low and hushed but still audible if she listens closely, and the distant noises of traffic and rain. She can hear the slow, even breathing of another person tied up next to her – tied to her, really, their ropes chafing her skin as well – but no one else's, leading her to believe they're alone in the room. That they’re locked away but not guarded. After a moment's consideration, she blinks her eyes open, and finds herself in what looks like a supply closet, flanked by grooms and buckets, in front of a milk glass door behind which she can make out the shape of people moving around and talking animatedly. 

With some effort, she dregs up memories of the past few days from her clouded, hazy brain – drugs, she's almost certain – and tries to put the puzzle together. A briefing in Washington. The flight to... where the hell _is_ she? It took awhile, that she remembers, so chances are they're not on US soil anymore. Undercover work; she's still wearing the expensive dress to prove it, and she wouldn't do that without good reason. Vague flashes of memory also suggest dancing – it's possible her intense surprise at Rogers being a pretty decent dancer burned them into her brain – and she remembers him and Romanoff climbing out of a van with her before whatever event they attended together. 

Her fellow abductee is big and bulky, so it's probably Rogers. 

As if on cue, there's a flare of pain shooting out from the abused skin on her wrists, and the weight at her back shifts. She catches his hand in hers and squeezes, hard, enough so he'll know it's not a gesture of comfort. And it works; he goes still against her. 

“What – “ he sets out to ask, quietly and under his breath, but he seems to lose is train of thought, because he sucks in a breath and groans instead. “My head hurts.” 

That is a possible setback – if they hit hard enough to give Captain America a headache, they might know who and what he is, which might make escape a little trickier. Then again, she's still not entirely sure whether his body processes pain the same way anyone else's does and can simply withstand more of it, or whether his threshold for, well, every sensation, is indeed higher. Maybe she should ask him, later, once they're out of here, so she can factor that into her calculations in the future. For the moment, they have more pressing concerns. 

“Can you get out of these ropes?” she asks, and, when he starts to move against her, adds, “I didn't say _get out of them now_ , I merely wanted to know if you can.” 

He huffs out a breath - they’re so close together that she feels it tickling her skin – and nods, which she also feels rather than sees. “Yeah. Not a problem.” 

That's a point in their favor, and also, possible evidence that their captors don't know how to handle a supersoldier after all. “What do you remember?” 

“We were in the museum and scouting the auction in order to find the target,” he says. “Followed him to the backroom hoping that...” He trails off. “Wait, _you_ don't remember that?” 

“You're not the only one who got hit on the head,” Maria shoots back, and then freezes, because she hears the handle of the door to their closet being opened. All she can do is hiss a command at him to close his eyes and play possum, before the door creaks open, two sets of heavy footsteps approaching them. 

She closes her own eyes, purposefully relaxes her features and concentrates instead on her hearing, trying to catch and process as much information as she possibly can. There are three different sets of footfalls, and the voices filling the room belong to two men and one woman. Identifying the language takes her a few words, but then she recognizes it as Hungarian. The woman’s authoritative tone marks her the leader, the men mostly answering questions or confirming commands. She sounds older, in her sixties probably, in contrast to the two younger men. All of that would probably make more sense if Maria’d could remember the case details, but she doesn’t so for now she files the information away and instead focuses on _what_ is being said. The exchange starts with the obvious, checking on her and Rogers as captives, until one of the men walks over and puts two fingers to her pulse point, then wraps a meaty hand around her neck and bends her head back and forth. She resists the initial instinct to avoid the touch and lets her body be moved, keeping up the pretense of still being unconscious. Rogers undergoes the same treatment, his body moving against hers, and also seems to be faking it well enough that their captors deem them both out cold. 

The second part of the conversation is more interesting; she manages to make out time and location for an incoming shipment, and instructions to take possession of it early the following morning. Too early for one of the men, apparently – he groans and complains with a few colorful words Maria doesn’t need to translate in full – and his dissent is promptly met with the sound of palm meeting cheek. Another curse, this time from the woman, and then she’s leaving the room, the men following her slowly and, Maria assumes, somewhat reluctantly. Human trafficking rings aren’t known for their friendly work environment, so she isn’t surprised, and yet she hopes that the crude treatment makes their captors a little bit more liable to slacking off, for their motivation to slip.

She hears the door fall closed and lets out a deep breath, nudging Rogers. “Do we know who she is?”

“Ada Halasz” he whispers back. “Her husband, Jakob, was the leader of this trafficking ring until she had him murdered a few years back and took over. They became a major player since then, big enough that SHIELD wants her out of the picture.”

Maria hums in reply and considers their options. Their comms are gone, which means they have been made as agents, even though she can’t know whether they have been identified as agents of _SHIELD_. Neither of them carries any sort of identification – missions like these come with two options, success or getting disavowed – and their tech and weapons were run of the mill. Given her company, their chances to get out of here with some violence are solid. That will, however, blow the whole operation and destroy their chances of taking out this particular ring leader for the near future. She doesn’t know where Romanoff is, although Maria’s confident that she’d be in here with them, had she been captured as well, and therefore managed to get away. Either that, or she’s dead. 

But if she's alive and out there, then, and Maria is certain about this, she's going to find them. Protocol might say that they're to be abandoned if they can't find their own way out, but Romanoff has spent too much time under Barton's wings to even contemplate that. For now, Maria decides, they'll sit tight. If the situation gets dire, they can still shoot their way out. 

She nudges Rogers, who goes rigid against her. “You okay with sitting this one out, for now?”

“Sure,” he says, and it sounds a lot less nonchalant than he might have intended. Reading someone’s body language, even if by feeling rather than seeing it, is a big part of the job, and he’s nervous. Not afraid, no, definitely not that, more like a caged animal, coiled up tight but ready to spring into action at the drop of a hat. She reminds herself that he isn’t some greenhorn with a loose trigger finger on his third mission; he’s been to war, and capable of strategic thinking. Surely he’ll be able to control his impulses in favor of the mission.

With no way to contact anyone and the decision made that they’ll bide their time for now, Maria’s senses turn into overdrive. She doesn’t waste any time cataloging the different cleaning utensils surrounding them; a cursory glance didn’t bring up anything useful, from what she’s able to make out in the dark. The conversations outside the closet are low and hushed and in Hungarian and a few Slavic languages , and not loud enough that she can understand more than a few words here and there. And she’s not trying very hard – the last thing she caught were football results and requests for alcoholic beverages.

It’s chilly in the room – middle of winter in this part of the world and broom closets are very rarely heated – and the goosebumps on her bare arms make her feel every air current, every scrape of fabric when Rogers moves against her, breathing in and out, scratching his thigh, all these subconscious little movements. His sleeves are rolled up to his elbows and their wrists and lower arms are touching, and she finds that his body is a furnace, probably due to his enhanced metabolism; she lets the warmth of his skin seep into hers, shifts so she’s closer, can leech more of his heat. Moments later Rogers shifts in turn, clearing his throat and elevating himself slightly so he can rearrange the position of his legs. It’s unnecessary and careless and Maria is about to point that out when it occurs to her just which part of his anatomy might need additional space. They’re pressed up _very_ close together. He’s going to be as aware of his skin against hers as she is of his. It’s reasonable to assume his body would react to that. She grips his wrist again and squeezes it again, much gentler this time, to let him know it’s okay, she understands, and she’s going to be discreet about it. Behind her, she feels his ribcage contract and release as he pushes out a long, measured breath.

For the first little while, Maria tries to keep track of the passage of time, counting along in the back of her mind, but there’s very little sense to that when she doesn’t know when they were taken or for how long they were out. No one’s going to need to know, later, how much time they spent tied up in a closet. The headache persists and she’s starting to feel a bit nauseous too – either the drugs or a concussion, and yet another reason to stay awake even though her whole body feels heavy and she’s tired, so tired. Nevertheless, the loud clang behind the door makes her jump.

She listens closely, but the rising crescendo of yelling and gunshots in the other room isn’t much to go on without visuals. Rogers voices what she’s thinking. “Romanoff?”

“Hopefully,” says Maria, even though that would be the logical conclusion. It might be _possible_ that a rival gang would pick just this day to invade Halasz’s liar, sure, but she doesn’t believe in coincidences. “Either way, I think now’s the time to get out of those ropes.”

Rogers’s head bops, shoulders heaving. She feels his arms strain against their confinement for mere seconds, and then he’s rising to his feet and pulling her up with him. They turn to face each other so he can remove her restraints as well, and then he kicks down the door of the closet.

Turns out, their help isn’t required. A few of Halasz’s men are still resisting, but the SHIELD team that is, indeed, led by Romanoff all but has the situation under control. The first couple of goons are in handcuffs and being led away, a few others strewn unconscious on the ground. Someone waves at her and Rogers to get out of the hot zone, and given how every muscle in her body aches and her head still throbs and she’s in real danger of throwing up after taking hardly three steps, Maria is inclined to obey. Rogers sends a glance to the scene of the dying-down shootout in front of them, but he’s unarmed; running into the fray right now would be dumb, might just get him hurt and distract their own people, as well. He puts a hand on the small of her back, steadying her, and they’re ushered out of the building and into a waiting van.

 

***

 

The brave young doctor that’s tasked with checking her over does his best to order Maria to stand down and rest for the next few days. He makes his case with the same medical worst case scenarios Maria’s already heard and ignored numerous times before, and she’s sure he means well, but when the team leaves to intercept the shipment the next morning Maria’s with them. Romanoff and Rogers are, too, and she hears the former’s low curses as they pry open the container and find at least a dozen women, most of them hardly twenty, dirty and shivering and some of them visibly sick. Maria gets it; she’s quite in the mood for a few choice expletives too, but she reins herself in, concentrates on the fact that these women are free now, they’re save, and if Maria has anything to do with it they will get all the help they need to build a new life somewhere far away from their captors. Local police takes care of the remaining arrests, and by noon, the team is boarding a SHIELD plane back home. 

On the flight back, she catches Rogers staring at her twice, with what he might think is sufficient stealth, and that's twice more than she's ever caught him staring. She's going to work out what to do with _that_ development once she's home and has showered and had about 48 consecutive hours of sleep. Never let it be said Maria Hill doesn't have her priorities sorted.


End file.
